House at the End of the Street by Lily Blake, David Loucka, Jonathan Mostow Page A

glass.
    “Ryan—open up!” he yelled. “I know she’s in there.”
    From where Ryan was hiding he could see Weaver draw his gun. Weaver broke the pane with the butt of it, then reached inside, unlocking the dead bolt. “Ryan?” he said again, stepping back into the dark kitchen. Ryan slunk deeper into the house, hiding near the pantry.
    Weaver carefully moved around the kitchen, holding his gun in front of him. Ryan watched him, his eyes moving from the officer, back to the open basement door. He wouldn’t let anyone take Elissa from him. She was his now, and she would be here because Carrie Anne couldn’t be. She would stay with him here and he would take care of her, make everything right. Weaver would have to understand that.
    Ryan pressed himself against the pantry as Weaver moved closer to the basement door. Anger pulsed through Ryan’s veins. As soon as Weaver was within striking distance, Ryan kicked him hard in the back, sending him tumbling down the basement stairs.
    Ryan ran after him, watching as Weaver landed with a crack on the cold concrete floor. The man twisted in pain. The memories returned, and Ryan had to blink back tears. He kicked the gun away from them and pressed his knee down into the center of Weaver’s chest. “You could have stopped all this a long time ago. But you didn’t. You let them do what they did. You knew. You were there.”
    His hands were shaking. He rocked back and forth,pressing his knee into Weaver’s chest, and the man winced in pain. Ryan couldn’t stop thinking of that day—the day Carrie Anne had died. His parents had been in their room, the smoke from the drugs drifting out of the window. Their eyes were half closed when they came outside. Weaver had been there—he had watched it all happen. Back then he spent afternoons at their house getting high when he was supposed to be on patrol.
You were there
, Ryan thought, pressing his knee into Weaver’s chest even harder than before.
You saw it all.
    After Carrie Anne had died, Weaver had helped Mr. Jacobsen take the body into the woods. They wrapped her tiny body in a sheet and secured it with duct tape. Then they buried her—his five-year-old sister—in a pit. Ryan still knew the spot. It was just beyond an old elm tree that twisted to the left. There was a dense patch of wildflowers that grew there.
    Ryan remembered how badly he’d shaken with fear and grief. His whole body had been trembling, and he’d been crying. But his mother had been too high to comfort him. She’d seemed catatonic as she sat next to him on the back steps. When his father and Weaver had come back, they’d put the shovel back in the garage, as if it hadn’t happened at all.
I don’t think you have much of a choice but to go along with this Bill
, his father had said.
No one can know what happened. No one can know he killed Carrie Anne.
    Ryan pulled the switchblade from his back pocket. He’d always kept it hidden in the kitchen and had secured it when he’d first entered the house and had heard Elissa inside. He flicked his wrist and the blade came out.
    He buried it in Weaver’s chest, between two of his top ribs. He felt only rage as he drove the blade in. “I protected you,” Weaver said, struggling against it. He reached for his gun, but it was several feet away.
    Ryan’s eyes were full of tears. He couldn’t contain the anger he felt for this man—the man who’d helped bury his sister, who watched for years as his parents abused him. They had wanted to punish him for what happened. No, they’d never admitted it was their fault. They’d never admitted they’d been locked away in their room getting high. It hadn’t been
their
fault—they’d reminded him of that every day. It was his. “No, you protected yourself. You protected them. Even though you knew what they did to me.”
    He watched as Weaver strained against the blade, then went limp. Blood covered his hands. Ryan hated him—he hated him for letting them do